The Pope on the Vocation of Motherhood… Whether He Knew It Or Not

A Guest Post by AWOL Mommy (Princeton grad, former military intelligence officer and mom of a 3 year old girl and a 3 month old boy) very much in tune with the theme of this blog, Building Cathedrals, and this month, May, dedicated to Mary.

Littleness seems to work itself into my daily life in many ways: my companions are little, their sandwiches and socks must be correspondingly little, but, more abstractly, I often feel that the tasks I must accomplish are so little. I confuse “little” with unimportant — which Cardinal Ratzinger does not allow. Mopping floors and folding underwear feel like little tasks – little and insignificant, however, the Pope’s words in Salt of the Earth reminded me that they are not. Rather, the love which forms the backbone of my decision to be a dedicated mother who must accomplish these tasks empowers me and my family.

Daddy makes the money. Daddy flies the airplanes. Daddy has the stories… aren’t these facts proof of his greater power in our family’s life?

The Pope says ‘au contrair’ … quite the opposite, in fact: “… the tenor of our faith is that God’s distinctive greatness revealed precisely in powerlessness. That, in the long run, the strength of history is precisely in those who love, which is to say, in a strength that, properly speaking, cannot be measured according to categories of power.”

We love! We love our families so powerfully that we forego countless selfish pleasures in order to accomplish all the little needs of our little people. The Pope says that we – mothers, mothers in the home, form a part of the “strength of history” – now I don’t know about you, but that sure sounds great to me — pass the basket of unmatched socks please!